My boyfriend and I were expecting his sister and her boyfriend to come to visit MIami July 16th so since we live in West Palm Beach and we wanted to visit them. We decided to stay in South Beach.
I began by shopping around for hotel rooms in the area, by the time I found Beach Paradise Hotel I was already giving up on my search. When I found them in Hotels.com I thought it just couldnt get better than the photos in the site. Thats when i decided to view the hotels personal website which by the way has been pulled out of the net recently. The photos where fabulous and beautiful. The whole place, the rooms and the lobby were reminiscent of a mediterranean style hotel by the sea.
I immediately showed my boyfriend and we were fascinated with this hotel. Well by the time July 16th comes around we were both excited about staying in the heart of South Beach and taking in the night life.
We finally arrived at South Beach and there was no complimentary parking as told on website. We had to find a multi level parking garage and lug our belongings 2 blocks like a couple of nomads. We finally arrive at the hotel and i kid you not i almost passed out!
This hotel in south beach, the so called creme de la creme of the deco drive strip was a total crap hole. The conditions in which we found the lobby were deplorable, there is no better word for this place. The lobby did not have any of the items shown on the pictures and it didnt have that pretty finihsed wood that they showed at all. They just had cute little bakery with all kinds of good stuff to eat and a rotten lobby. The wood was so old it smelled like mold and smelly ocean water.
We headed to the person at the Desk to check in and he was a total joke. He kept on making mistakes on my boyfriend's credit card and having to reverse the charges after he commited the same dumb mistake over again.
This following part is what i dont understand: when i booked through hotels.com I was under the understanding that the fee per night would be $120.00 but when we were charged the clerk only charged $77.97. Then he realized that hotels.com wanted more money so he greedily charged us the difference, at this point we were ok with the fact that he had made a mistake and had to fix.
A minute later a man comes up to the clerk and rudely interrupts us and tells the clerk that he found a rate at a hotel website for $77. The same price he accidentally charged us! By then he asked the clerk for a rate and then the clerk makes it a point to tells us that we can now proceed to our room and then basically in very few words shoos us away.
Now what I wonder is why did he send us away before he can give that man a rate? Why did he make it a point to make sure we were gone before offering the potential guest a rate? I believe there might be price gouging going on at that hotel.
We got in the elevator which was probably about 70 years old. It was old, smelled gross and scary when you arrive at any floor. The hallways were like dorm halls but worse. The room doors have very low security because you can only use regular metal keys and the doors were shabby like i couldnt believe.
The room wasnt the beautiful one we were offered and by this point i wasnt in the mood to tell the management. The room had lawn furniture instead of the traditional coffee table and chairs most hotels have and the lawn chairs werent even wood they were green and rusted metal, the bed was disgusting it reeked of cigarette smoke and the sheets were not warm.
The ac in the room was a central unit and there were no adjusters in the room. The bathroom wasnt that bad and the location was a good one, so i will them points for that. However as the night we ended up staying at a dance club till 5 am.
By the time 5:30 am came around we were at the front of the hotel and not to my surprise there were 3 hoodlums almost passing out on the steps of the hotel. I asked one of them if they knew where we could find a place to eat and they said no. These people were obvously drugged up beyond belief and I cant believe that the hotel would let people hang around like that.
We finally get to our floor and we hear a party in one of the rooms. Also there was the disgusting stench of marijuana coming from the same direction in which that party is located.By the time check out came around i was ready to head home. We checked out, I gave My complaint, they look at me like i didnt know what i was talking about and explained to us that a deposit that had been charged at the beginning of our stay would not be charged...
We get home and 2 days later while my boyfriend is doing his online banking... SURPRISE! He gets charged the same deposit that they told us would not be charged. My boyfriend calls them and the same man that checks us in picks up the phone, my boyfriend explains who we are so the man can familiarize the voice on the phone with the face and the conversation that took place.
After the man acknowledges who he is; my boyfriend reminds him of what we were told concerning the deposit that was never supposed to be charged. The man decides to play DUMB and even has the audacity to tell my boyfriend that he doesnt know who he is after he told my boyfriend at the beggining of the phone call that he remembered him and that he even asked how was our stay.
He then tells us we need to speak to a daytime manager and after that it took about 4 days of back and forth for them to finally refund my boyfriend... Although this is a long story I hope that if anyone has read this far into it that they may have at least found it helpful in one way or another.
Ive never had anything bad to say about any hotel when i am told what im paying for, but when people actually think they are staying at a nice hotel and instead you put them in Motel 6 conditions. I think anyone would be as upset as I was!
Jennifer
Boynton Beach, Florida
U.S.A.
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